For His Own Good
by melinda08
Summary: GFA from Hawkeye's POV. Contains spoilers


Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce was an impulsive man, prone to rash decisions and acts of passion, but they were thought out, with reason behind them. He was an intelligent man, more so than his fellow soldier. Too intelligent for his own good many said. He questioned authority whenever he got the chance, instigated many incidents of impulse actions followed by others, and used humor as a coping mechanism in this terrible thing called war that he was forced to serve in. He was a leader, not a follower, and used whatever coping devices he could to deal with the hardships of being away from home. So when he drove through a tent it raised a few eyebrows, but no one knew what exactly he was going through.

"Give me a bourbon," Hawkeye told Igor. Something strong enough to forget about the horrors of what he'd been through. Something strong enough to drink away the terrors that plagued his mind. Something strong enough to erase away the memories that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He was a martini man, but this was no ordinary occasion. For last night he'd witnessed something no man should have to witness- he'd witnessed the murder of a child by its own mother.

But Hawkeye didn't have time, or even the capacity to think about that. He was needed elsewhere. Back in the OR it was business as usual. Time to process the horrors of war, as he did day after day, night after night. No time to stop to think about what he'd seen, even if he wanted to. The men came in, one by one. The second man came in and needed anesthesia. As soon as it came time to put the black mask over his face Hawkeye began to panic. Not your ordinary panic but the kind that felt as if your-life-might-end-if-this-event-occurred panic. The room filled with air so thick that it became impossible for him to breathe. Drowning in his own sweat, he began to call out that they were smothering the man. Knocking the mask out of the way, he was ready to place his first cut until B.J. knocked the knife from out of his hands and then two of the men grabbed Hawkeye. Putting up a good fight, it took B.J. and the two men a good fifteen minutes to restrain him until they could get him on the bus, ready to take him onto his destination.

It came to him in bits and pieces. Some things were humorous. Some people were laughing and having a good time. Some people were passing around a bottle. What was a bottle doing on the bus? What was a chicken doing on the bus? She killed a chicken. That was all he knew. Hawkeye Pierce had lost his mind over a chicken. His most prized possession- his mind- had snapped- over something so trivial. And Sydney couldn't let it go. He kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And then it dawned on him- it wasn't a chicken- it was a baby. The mother had killed her baby! How in the world could he live with that? He couldn't. He would never be the same, he knew that. He knew that people died senseless deaths in a police action, but a baby… he couldn't wrap his mind around that. He knew why she did it but he didn't understand it- he didn't want to. There were so many things wrong with that scenario. He had snapped, maybe It was the one event or maybe it was the culmination of everything he'd been through.

In a sick way he was glad he snapped. It meant that he cared, and that was something no one could take from him, not even the war. That was the one thing he had to hold on to, but now it was broken, and he was wondering if it would ever be fixed. But as long as he had hope in mankind, somewhere, he would be okay. But he just didn't know if he had that anymore. That's' what caused him to snap. Maybe he would be okay. Maybe he could go back to being Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, healer of the human body. But one thing he did know was that he couldn't be was restorer of the human faith, because he just didn't have that to give anymore. Someday he would, with the help of his family and friends, he would be okay, but until then, he would just need to heal, however long it took.

The end


End file.
